


Going the Extra Mile

by ireadhpinenochian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 17:51:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3497369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ireadhpinenochian/pseuds/ireadhpinenochian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Balthazar is in town for a visit and Cas is sick and tired of his cousin's attempts to "get him laid" so he comes up with a great plan. Fantastic, even. And it works. It's just, well, it works a little too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going the Extra Mile

“Dean,” Cas said urgently, slamming the door behind himself and striding dramatically into their shared apartment. “I need your help.”

Dean looked up from his homework. Seeing the look of pure terror on his best friend’s face he chucked the highlighter he had been using down on top of his text book and got to his feet. “Okay, what’s wrong.”

“Balthazar is in town.”

Dean nodded slowly. “Right,” he said, dragging the word out. “And you need my help because…”

Cas grunted in annoyance and grabbed Dean by the red flannel over shirt. “Because, Dean, every time he visits he drags me all over town to try and ‘get me laid,’” he let go of Dean to make air quotes, “and I just couldn’t take it again so I may have lied and said—“

There was a resounding boom as their front door slammed into the wall from the force with which it was thrown open. “Cassie!”

Cas’ face paled as he turned to face his cousin. He resumed his desperate grip on Dean’s shirtsleeve.

“You ran off so quickly, I didn’t realize it was a race.” Balthazar walked into the apartment as if he owned the place.

“It wasn’t a race,” Cas told him. “I—I had just remembered that I had forgotten to tell Dean—“

Balthazar, who had been peering around the apartment with mild interest, snapped his eyes over to the confused face of Cas’ roommate. “This is the boyfriend?”

Dean’s eyes widened and he looked the inch or two down at Cas’ strained features. Well, he can’t say this is how he pictured his Thursday night going, but what the hell.

He slung an arm around Cas’ stiff shoulders and held out his hand. “That’s me. Dean Winchester.”

Balthazar took the proffered hand and gave it a firm shake. “Pleasure,” he said, eyeing him up and down. “Cassie wasn’t lying when he said he bagged a hottie.”

“Balthazar!” Cas tried to reprimand him, but it was drowned out by Dean’s booming laugh.

“A hottie, huh?” Dean said, nudging Cas’ hip with his own.

Cas narrowed his eyes at Balthazar. “That is not the terminology I used,” he groused.

“Oh yes, yes,” Balthazar said, waving away Cas’ concern with a hand. “When you said it you sounded like the proper gentleman you are. I’m sorry if we don’t all talk like we’re living in a Jane Austen novel.”

“I do not sound like I’m living in a Jane Austen novel.”

“Aw, come on, baby,” Dean said. “You can sound like that.”

Cas humphed and crossed his arms tightly across his chest. “I highly doubt that either of you have even read a Jane Austen novel and therefore have nothing with which you can base a comparison.” Then he turned to Dean. “And please, do not refer to me as a baby.”

Dean grinned. “Well you’re other pet name is a little too crude to use in front of company.”

Balthazar threw back his head and laughed while Cas’ turned an alarming shade of red.

“Dean!”

But Dean just chuckled and bent down to whisper, “This is going to be fun.”

—

In retrospect, Cas knew it had been a horrible idea to lie to Balthazar about Dean being his boyfriend. He should have chosen Sam, or Garth. Hell, Bobby would have been better than this.

Originally, Cas had thought that it would be easy. Balthazar had always been able to read him like a book and he had a very difficult time lying to him about his feelings. Lying to him about facts was a piece of cake, but somehow his cousin knew every time he so much as glanced in another’s direction. So really, this should have been simple. He knew he was in love with Dean, had been for quite some time now and had already resigned himself to the fact that his feelings wouldn’t be reciprocated, so he thought yes, perfect, Balthazar would never suspect. He’d be able to see that Cas was smitten and simply lie about the fact that their relationship wasn’t romantic in nature. He did, however, forget to factor in one tiny little thing—Dean was a little shit.

He claimed he was “going the extra mile” with the teasing and flirting and the wandering hands (oh god, the wandering hands—half of Cas’ time was now spent trying not to pop an awkward boner in public), and in all honesty he was selling the lie better than he could have hoped.

But it was driving Cas insane. It was as if all of his dreams had come true, except he knew that he was still dreaming. Everything—each private smile, each brush of his hand, and each hot puff of air that came with one of his soft whispers—it was all going to end. And the worst part was that it wasn’t even real in the first place. Cas was drowning in a lie that he so desperately wanted to fall for.

So by the time Sunday rolled around he was both desperate for and absolutely dreading the hour of Balthazar’s departure back to England.

“Hey, you okay?”

Dean’s voice brought Cas out of his own depressing thoughts and back to the conversation they were having. “What?”

There were fingers at his jaw, tilting his head up to look into green eyes filled with concern. “I asked if you were okay.”

“Oh,” Cas said. “Yes. I am fine. Thank you, Dean.”

“You sure?” he asked. “You seem a little out of it. I can take Balthazar to the airport on my own if you’re not feeling up to going—“

“No!” he nearly shouted. Apparently his dread far outweighed his desperation. Then in a calmer, much less crazed tone, he added, “No, thank you, but I’m fine to go with you.” He saw Balthazar coming back into the room. “Besides, I wouldn’t be so cruel as to leave you with only Balthazar for company.”

“Oh, you wound me, Cassie,” Balthazar replied, feigning hurt with a hand over his heart.

Dean laughed. “Come on, Cas. He’s not so bad once you get passed the general air of dickishness.”

That managed to scrounge a laugh out of Cas, while Balthazar gave them both up as a lost cause and announced that it was about time they left if he wanted to make his flight.

Cas enjoyed the ride in the Impala very much. Balthazar kept up a running dialogue, inviting the two of them to visit him in England and describing the acts of debauchery they could get up to. But Cas was hardly paying him any attention. Dean was lazily carding the fingers on the hand not steering through his hair, playing with the shorter hairs at the nape of his neck.

By the time they were dropping Balthazar off at the correct gate, Cas was just about ready to beg him to stay. On bended knee if need be. He didn’t want it to end. Dean’s arm was a warm, solid weight around his shoulders as they stood at the curb, waving Balthazar off. As soon as he was through the doors with his back turned, Cas stepped nimbly out from under Dean.

Dean turned to face Cas with a furrowed brow, opening his mouth to say something.

“Balthazar is gone,” Cas cut him off. “We, um, don’t have to pretend anymore.”

Dean’s brow furrowed even more before quickly recollecting himself. “Right. Balthazar.” He nodded a few times and rounded the car to get back into the driver’s seat.

The ride back was much less pleasant and far more tense. Neither of them spoke, Dean drowning out their awkward silence with Led Zeppelin turned up as high as it would go.

Cas’ eardrums were throbbing by the time they got back to their apartment, but it was nothing to how his heart felt. He should have tried to convince Balthazar to move here while he had the chance. Would Dean have allowed them to keep the ruse up for the rest of their lives, or would he have demanded a fake breakup to their fake relationship?

Dean slammed his door as he got out of the car and stalked his way into their apartment building, not even looking back to see if Cas was following.

Cas sighed and followed at a much more sedate pace.

—

The next few days were awkward with just the two of them alone together again. Neither seemed to be able to stay in the same room with the other for more than a few minutes. Dean had become withdrawn and distant, and Cas couldn’t help but to notice that they were going through their stash of whiskey faster than normal.

Finally, a week after Balthazar’s departure, Dean came into the living room with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “I can’t do this anymore,” he announced.

Cas felt his heart drop. “What?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m sorry, man,” Dean said. “I just… I can’t stop thinking about it all, you know? I thought it was going to be easy.”

“Dean,” Cas said, standing up from his seat on the couch. “Please.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I wish we could go back, I wish I could just stop thinking about it.”

Cas choked on the sob that was trying to crawl its way out of his throat.

“No, Cas, don’t—” Dean took a step forward, hand reaching out for him, but seemed to think better of it and stopped halfway, letting his arm fall uselessly back to his side.

Cas watched the descent of Dean’s arm and his expression hardened. “What? You can’t even touch me now?”

Dean bit his lip and looked away.

“Are you honestly that repulsed by me?”

Dean snorted. “I wish that was the case,” he muttered.

“What?” Cas snapped.

Dean shook his head. “Look, I just can’t be around you anymore, okay? It’s too hard. I shouldn’t have pushed it so far, I shouldn’t have even agreed—“

“Then why did you?” Cas demanded. “Why would you agree to help me out if it was only going to disgust you in the end?”

“Disgust me?” Dean asked. “You’re the one that couldn’t fucking wait to get away from me once Balthazar turned his back!”

“Because I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable!” Cas shouted.

“Well I—wait, what?” Dean’s brow furrowed.

Cas took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable by keeping up our fake relationship any longer than we had to.” He shrugged. “I figured it was like a band-aid. Drop the charade fast enough and the pain would be minimal.”

“What pain?”

Cas sighed and looked up at Dean. “The pain of ending it.”

“You didn’t want it to end?” Dean asked.

He shook his head in reply.

“Shit, Cas,” Dean laughed, dropping his duffel onto the floor and closing the distance between them with three long strides. “Then why the fuck did we let it end?”

“Because it wasn’t real,” Cas replied.

Dean shrugged and put his hand on Cas’ cheek. “Felt pretty real to me,” he said, using his thumb to wipe away a stray tear that had managed to escape from those watery blue eyes. He moved in and pressed his lips to Cas’, in their very first and very real kiss.

—

It was another year before Balthazar managed to visit again.

“Dean,” Cas called, closing the door behind himself and walking over to where Dean was seated on the couch. “I need your help.”

“Okay,” Dean said, throwing the remote down on the cushion next to him and standing. “What’s wrong?”

“Balthazar is here.”

Dean grinned. “Need me to be your fake boyfriend again?” he asked, leaning down to give Cas a quick peck on the lips.

Cas rolled his eyes. “Come on, he’s downstairs and has at least five bags with him. And no,” he cut Dean off before he could comment, “I don’t know why he needs so many for a four day trip. And no,” he held up a hand to cut off the question he could see forming on his boyfriend’s lips, “I’m not going to ask. I do not want to be scarred for life. Again.”

Dean laughed and snaked his arm around Cas’ waist as they made their way to the door. “You know, I still don’t know what the French word for twelve is.”


End file.
